


Only Gold is Hard Enough

by Jae_Mackenzie



Series: Double Bubble Disco Queen [5]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, Fallout Nuka World DLC
Genre: Cannon Divergence, F/M, Half Chinese Nora, Romance, love...?, universe where Operators rebelled, universe where shaun died
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-20 20:47:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17029743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jae_Mackenzie/pseuds/Jae_Mackenzie
Summary: Nora is haunted with a reoccurring nightmare. Only to awake while on an away-mission with the Pack. Mason, talks her down and comforts her.





	1. Lost in thought but Held the Vison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Nightmare: This chapter is literally just the awful nightmare. No comfort. No context.  
> It is implied that this version of Nora was biracial, American and Chinese.

Nora’s father pointed to the twinkling lights above in the sky. Her tiny fingers followed his tracing out shapes in the stars, while the cold from the grass soaked through her stockings. His deep baritone soothed her soul as he chuckled watching her grasp at the stars, "Remember this one Nora?"  She hesitantly bit her lip, shaking her head, knowing no one told stories better, not even mommy.

"That constellation is Vega and Altair. Once upon a time a beautiful, and powerful American woman was visiting a far away land of China. The cherry trees were starting to blossom, there with the pink petals falling around her, she fell in love with a poor Chinese farm boy. So much that she couldn't bear to go back to America with out him. When they arrived her family wouldn't talk to her, or allow them to come home.

You see, things were tense between the two countries and many people didn't like Chinese people. But she didn't care because she knew the farm-boy was her true love so they got married, and on their wedding the night sky lit up with stars that promised no matter what, they would always find each-other."

The ground's persistent chill crept up Nora’s spine until it was impossible to ignore the changing around her. While her father’s voice faded the sky, as usual, mocked her broken heart projecting Vega and Altair down while all the earth warmed with the heat of explosions and the passage of time. Nora’s tiny form started to shiver as the dream echoed with gunshots and fire. 

From the corner of Nora’s eye she could see the shadow of her mother weeping in the kitchen holding her father's hat. Although Nora knew he lay next to her, with the heat seeping into her skin from the dark sky, and the cold soaking through the ground she knew he would be there for long. This wasn't the first time Nora’s childhood inspired dream had burdened her with grief, and if tradition was to be followed, would soon turn to fear. 

"Sugarplum?" Nora tried to keep her eyes locked on the stars, the vision of her parents reunited, because Nora knew if she looked at her father, he would show the pallor of his face from the day they buried him. Not just his corpse but a living man trying to reach out to his daughter and failing as the radiation ate away at his skin, his eyes melting inside his skull until his skeleton alone sat in a pile of fried intestines and congealed blood. This dream trapped the calloused woman out-of-time inside, her ten year old body despite the feeling of every death, of every trauma, happening all at once. Nora knew so certainly this was all happening that if she turned to say goodbye to the mushy remains of her father that she'd also have to face the skeletons of her own husband and Shaun, their baby boy.

Nora would have to look. That's how dreams worked. Unable to turn from the pile of bones she'd be confronted with Shaun's little fingers reaching for his momma, before turning to dust and collapsing back into the dirt all while the spirits of Nora’s parents gazed down from Vega and Altair trying to turn her attention from the horror back to the childhood game of connecting the dots in the sky. Nora’s frozen and rapt attention couldn't hear them, although she knew they tried to reach her, in that place removed from time she’d clench her little fists and battered them against the injustices of war until they bled. Trapped between the silhouetted memory of her weeping mother, and her father, husband, and son mangled and decaying. 

The heat from the bombs would get closer and closer until everything was white, and all Nora smelled was burning flesh, and her mother's perfume mingled with the mildew and dust when she woke up in the vault, alone in a room of thawed corpses starting to liquefy in their cryo-pods. Even there within these dreams she was a child, unable to find her son while retching and releasing her husband's frozen corpse and taking the ring from his finger trying to run away before she had to watch him slough apart like some of the other previously frozen vault members.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like what you just read? Remember to leave Kudos, comment and subscribe so you know when more parts are uploaded! And as always requests are open! Nothing is too detailed or off limits! ~See you next time!


	2. Silver Lining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mason offers you solace after your nightmare. Mixed comfort and context.

Nora sharply woke from her night-terror, her throat filled with bile, tight, tense, and unable to speak. Coming out of the nightmare she hardly recognized her own chambers. The dirt covered and decrepit facade was crumbling over her head where seconds ago she saw the constellations of her childhood. Although she knew the body next to her was Mason, Nora couldn't turn to face him- afraid he too would burn and melt before her eyes.

"Nor' wake up- wake up!" Mason spoke sternly, jostling Nora until she felt alive again within her own body.  Mason's eyes were wide, his grip on Nora's shoulders tight, grounding her in the moment, awake and safe. Mason wiped the sticky strands of hair from her damp brow, shifting so she was relaxed on the bed. "I's taking a walk around the park and heard your screams, even with all the sounds 'round here I knew something wasn't right." Mason spoke lowly, keeping his voice soft in an attempt to calm her. 

Nora scoffed, blinking tears from her eyes. "Mason?" Her voice was small, still laced with all the fear left inside her brain while it searched for lingering smoke. His presence was a comfort, not uncommon in her bed. Yet, she didn't remember having him there when she fell asleep. He soothed her, running a hand over her back. The circular motion drawing her inch by inch back into the reality of his arms. After Gage's meddling had lost its usefulness Nora chose Mason to act as her second. His raw strength and aggression made him an obvious choice and a regular in her apartment. Their closeness had grown with time, but Nora never expected him to see her like this. Disheveled, broken, and  _afraid_.  How could she lead, if he knew she was so easily defeated by dreams?Mason placed a soft kiss on her forehead, and slowly wrapped the blankets over them. Of all the trysts and heat-of-the-moment kisses, Nora knew this was different. His hands weren't hungry or harsh, but soft and reassuring as they soothed and secured her. 

"I saw my parents, and my poor little baby," she whispered, fearing her words would somehow resurrect their decaying memories. Nora kept her voice low, as if that could keep it steady. "I never got to bury them. Before the war, they chased dad out of town, momma never made it to the vault. And Shaun..." Her voice faded as her thoughts spun around picturing her little boy, cold and long dead from the vault failure. Those memories were now mixed with the charred bones from her nightmare. "It was like the bomb had just dropped, and  _fuck_ Shaun was so tiny...all those little bones just burning in my hands." She shuddered at the lingering images. Mason only held her tighter, giving Nora room to speak.

"Sometimes my dreams make me face every corpse I've made. That I can handle, I'm not the same woman anymore. But _Christ_  I can't face their's. I couldn't try to help them, I couldn't even avenge them." Nora clenched her jaw, biting out the words, "God I'd kill them all if I could. But I can't kill ghosts." 

"...Nor' Your dad was a soldier, he'd be proud with the warrior you've become."  Nora smiled lightly, and snuggled closer into his chest. Somehow, he always knew what to say. Breathing deeply, she lost the scent of blood and flesh and for a blissful moment breathed in the clear air. Sleep followed much easier this time, left alone from all of her ghosts, knowing even if they returned she wasn't alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like what you just read? Remember to leave Kudos, comment and subscribe so you know when more parts are uploaded! And as always requests are open! Nothing is too detailed or off limits! ~See you next time!


End file.
